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Canada doesn't need to erode civil rights to fight terror: Editorial

Tues., April 23, 2013

Shock and relief. That's how most Canadians greeted the news that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have foiled an Al Qaeda-directed terror attack on a VIA Rail passenger train. Coming so close after the Boston Marathon bombings, the thought of a potentially worse outrage here is chilling.

Due credit to the RCMP, security services and other forces for identifying the two foreign suspects early on, tracking them back to Al Qaeda elements in Iran who provided “direction and guidance,” and thwarting their plan to derail a train in the busiest region of the country. This was international teamwork at its best. It brings to mind the case of the “Toronto 18” who talked of storming Parliament. That plot, too, was foiled, 11 were convicted, some jailed for life.

From left, RCMP chief superintendent Jennifer Strachan, assistant commissioner James Malizia and chief superintendent Gaeten Courchesne announce in Toronto Monday they had arrested and charged two men with an Al Qaeda-supported plot to derail a VIA passenger train. (AARON HARRIS / REUTERS)

For Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government, this police coup couldn't have been better timed. Once again, Parliament is debating a tough law, the Combatting Terrorism Act, that will give the police sweeping new powers. This will strengthen the government's determination to push the bill through despite opposition from the New Democrats, civil libertarians and others.

We've been here before. After the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on New York, then prime minister Jean Chrétien's majority Liberal government set the precedent by passing its similarly named Anti-Terrorism Act. In that case, too, smoke from a highly politicized and emotional debate about terrorism blotted out the sun, legitimizing the imposition of draconian laws with scant regard for civil rights. But what's clear from both the Toronto 18 and VIA Rail cases is that the police and security services already possess the tools they need.

These thwarted plots lend credence to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association view that “the current powers of law enforcement already allow security agencies to pursue, investigate, disrupt and successfully prosecute terrorism-related crimes.” The proposed, largely recycled law “adds no value to our law or to law investigation and enforcement,” the association rightly notes.

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Attention has focused on a provision that creates a new criminal offence of leaving Canada to commit terrorist acts abroad. That would seemingly apply to the two Canadians who took part and died in the Algeria gas plant siege earlier this year. Whether it would deter this sort of terrorism remains to be seen.

What the law will do, worrisomely, is bring back measures that erode our civil liberties here at home. The Chrétien Liberals rushed the provisions onto the books after 9/11, but they were never used as intended and lapsed in 2007 under a five-year review process and sunset clause. For years Parliament wisely rebuffed efforts by the minority Harper government to bring them back. Now the Tories have the power to push them into law.

One troubling provision would re-equip police with the power to “preventively” detain people without a warrant and hold them for three days without charge on suspicion of terrorism. And a judge could jail a suspect for up to a year if he or she refused to abide by orders to keep the peace. The other problematic measure for “investigative hearings” would let the courts force people who may know of a terrorist offence to tell what they know even if it incriminates them, though it couldn't be used in later proceedings. If they refuse, they, too, can be jailed for up to a year.

In the eyes of the Canadian Bar Association these provisions have “the potential to violate basic rights and freedoms.” As the Star has noted before, the ancient rights under attack include the right not to be imprisoned without due process, and the right to remain silent.

“The Criminal Code (before 9/11) was already an effective tool to counter terrorism,” the civil liberties association says. “It allowed for lawful surveillance, evidence-gathering, prosecution, conviction and punishment while also upholding an individual's Charter rights to the presumption of innocence, due process and a fair and transparent trial. These so-called anti-terrorism provisions do not maintain these basic legal standards.”

Disturbing words, those. By now, Canadians are fully alert to the threat that terror poses. What is less clear is that the police need more power than they already have, to counter that threat.

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